Life off the grid in the SW Texas desert. An experiment in sustainable living. NUMBERS AT THE END OF EACH BLOG POST: temp at 8PM,high temp,low temp,rainfall,wind conditions(CalmBreezyWindyGusty).

Sunday, December 6, 2009

black paint sunday

Inspired by yesterdays realization that I am way behind schedule - I drummed up some chores to fill the day. Solar heat was top of the list. Ripped open the solar oven and vacuumed out all the dust, cleaned the glass, and gave the interior a fresh coat of black bar'b'que paint. Sealed it back up and let it cook away all day to burn off the fumes. Was up to 300 quickly now that the interior has been refurbished. Let it heat up and vent out twice over the course of the day. Now it's good to go for the next round of baking.

Since I am in dire need of a nice hot shower, I figured I should also ramp up the solar water heater. Removed and cleaned the glass from the top and gave the tank a fresh coat of black just like the oven. Put it all back together and watched the water temperature rise. Not quite hot enough for a shower tonight.....but what is one more day.

Nice full sun all day and almost made it up to 80 degrees outside. Feeling a bit low on my vitamin D, I pulled out a lounge chair from the guest room and actually laid out in the sun for an hour. As I sampled a nice Sunday afternoon beer, I spotted something squiggly moving along the ground. A skinny little snake was working its way toward my house. Choosing not to kill on a Sunday, I coaxed him away with a stick. Hope he finds a nice spot to spend the winter...away from my house.

My friend Rachel (famous flower girl from the wedding last weekend) is in dire need of a new computer. Help yourself to her "Equipment Fundraiser Campaign" page to check out art that she is selling to help make the new computer a reality. http://rachelmanera.blogspot.com/ I will one up any art purchase with a Field Lab tshirt and a vial of precious Field Lab Melted Snow. Each vial by the way contains the equivalent of approximately 526,463 small snowflakes. 47,78,25,0

Addendum: The Field Lab Research and Fact Checking Team has come up with a more reasonable approximation for the snowflake count per 1.75ml of water..... best guess now is 58,450

13 comments:

that's a juvenile gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer), probably born this past September. This is a non-venomous snake species that can easily grow to lengths over 6'. Having that snake around isn't a bad thing considering he/she will likely take care of any rodents sneaking off with any of Benita's treats.

I'm with Travis on both the ID and the sentiment - leave non-poisonous snakes alone - they are your friends. Plenty of rodents in the SW US that want to get into your home and eat your dry goods, or build a nest in your electronics (happened to me - lost a good computer due to mouse nest).

Those must have been really tiny snowflakes to fit so many into a 2 mL vial!

For normal snowflakes...

2 mL liquid water times 1 g per mL of liquid water times 1 mole of water per 18 g times 6.022x10^23 molecules per mole times 1 snowflake per 10^18 molecules is just a bit under 67,000 snowflakes per vial. I guess the video made them look bigger so they seemed like average sized flakes (hey, everybody knows the camera adds pounds, right?).

I was wondering when you were going to encounter a snake or two. Snakes travel in pairs,I have been told. I could have misdiagnosis the snake by the picture and that one look like a diamondback rattler to me, very poisonous. Beware!

Gorgeous bullsnake! (aka gopher snake) They're wonderful critters to have around, more likely to retreat than anything else. Only once has one twitched its tail when I got too close; maybe the tactic works in dry leaf litter, not so much on bare dirt.